John Calipari won, recruited stars, graduated players and packed the house

Ron Higgins

12:00 AM, Apr 1, 2009

Whoever is Memphis' next coach has to connect with the community like John Calipari did. Billy Gillispie's critics say he ignored UK's fan base.

Mark Weber/The Commercial Appeal files

A few days before John Calipari became the basketball coach at the University of Memphis on March 11, 2000, three very wise men saw the future for the Tigers.

"He'll impact not just the school but the community," said Bob Marcum, the University of Massachusetts athletic director who was Calipari's boss. "He'll give you far more than what you expect out of a basketball coach."

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"Memphis is lucky to get a guy like Cal -- he'll bring in some big-time players and he'll shock the world," said Sam Cassell, who played for Calipari with the NBA's New Jersey Nets. "Cal's the man."

Check!

"John better understand that Elvis will always be the old king in Memphis, but he's going to be the new king," ESPN college basketball analyst Dick Vitale said. "I don't care if you pay him $5, $10 or $10 million. The guy is a flat-out workaholic."

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And now that Cal, after nine seasons and a 252-69 record in Memphis, is moving on to his next coaching challenge at Kentucky?

Check, please.

There's a reason Calipari was at the top of Kentucky's shopping list to replace the fired Billy Gillispie. Calipari delivered everything he promised and more for the Tigers, not only on the court but in the community.

His basketball legacy is obvious.

When Cal got to Memphis after being fired by the Nets, the once-proud UofM program was on life support.

TheTigers hadn't qualified for the NCAA Tournament since 1996 and the team graduation rate was zero. Average home attendance was about 8,000. Athletic program donations were just $2.5 million annually. Previously fired coach Tic Price admitted to an affair with an undergraduate student.

Calipari departs after three straight Elite Eight appearance followed by a Sweet 16 elimination this year, after four consecutive 30-win seasons, after 61 straight Conference USA wins, after last year's heartbreaking overtime loss to Kansas with a Tiger team that won an NCAA-record 38 games.

There have been nationally ranked recruiting classes with his ability to recruit coast-to-coast, something no Memphis coach has ever done. He's had four first-round NBA draft choices with a likely fifth (Tyreke Evans).

Seventeen of 23 seniors have graduated, not counting this year's class, and Calipari encouraged former Tigers that he didn't coach to come back and graduate, such as Andre Turner, Keith Lee, Chris Garner and Cedric Henderson. UofM games are hard sellouts.

"John won, he brought in superstars, he graduated players, he packed the house and he got great recognition and visibility for the city," said Vitale on Monday from his home in Florida. "On a scale of 10, the job he did was a 15."

Mike DeCourcy of The Sporting News, a former UofM beat writer for The Commercial Appeal, said Calipari did an "extraordinary job, no surprise because he did it at UMass."

DeCourcy said his only disappointment was Calipari's failure to recruit Memphis-area players, not connecting with Memphis high school and AAU coaches.

"I remember writing a column very early in John's tenure when Earnest Shelton of White Station went to Alabama, so John just went and signed a kid named Anthony Rice from Atlanta," DeCourcy said.

"When John took him, it was like a sign (to the Memphis high school and AAU coaches), 'You're not going to push me around. I'm going to get this done with or without you. I'd love to have you on-board, but if you're not going to come, I'm going to go ahead and move forward.' They said, 'Go ahead and do it, I bet you you can't.' And he went ahead and did it anyway."

Whoever is the next coach also has to connect with the community like Calipari, one of the traits that helped him get hired at UK where Gillispie ignored the town and the fan base.

Calipari has hosted fundraisers at his house, as well as booster-club barbecues. He once devoted most of one of his postgame radio shows explaining why the Memphis-based University of Tennessee Health Science Center should be turned over to the UofM. He created the Calipari Family Foundation for Children to support local charities.

Kevin Kane, president of the Memphis Convention and Visitors Bureau, has always credited Calipari for providing a major assist in the city getting an NBA franchise.

"He could have stopped the NBA from considering Memphis, because Rick Pitino did (that) in Louisville," Kane said. "But John looked at the community as a whole and knew what having an NBA team would do for the city."

ESPN anaylst Jay Bilas said the timing is right for Calipari to go to Kentucky.

"He's done everything he can at UMass and Memphis," Bilas said. "John Calipari is a great salesman. He's never coached at a major school, and I think he has the personality and skill to deserve a job considered among the top five programs."

Vitale agrees that Kentucky and Calipari are a fit.

"Kentucky is one of the elite programs in the nation, and John has got the whole package to handle it," Vitale said. "He can recruit, he can deal with the media, he can deal with the modern-day athlete. He's what they need at Kentucky, a Rick Pitino-type guy."

Bilas and DeCourcy are split on the UofM's next move.

"It's not going to be easy to replace John Calipari, but I think Memphis will get a good coach," Bilas said. "Will he be as good as Calipari? He won 90 percent of his games. If the next coach wins 80 percent, it would be great."

DeCourcy thinks the Tigers will have a tough road.

"The program is going to decline fairly quickly and it's going to be hard to rebuild it, because you don't have that base of hometown players who are happy to play for Memphis and want to be in the city," DeCourcy said. "The people that are in the program now are people that want to play for Cal.

"But the University of Memphis has a lot of money and it can afford to find someone special. That's a good sign.

"Hiring a coach is trickier this time, it will be harder, because you don't have Cal sitting out there with no job looking for his next move and finding the gold mine that Memphis can be. There's not as many moveable coaches now as there were 10 years ago. John has built a strong legacy to follow, and if you're a coach somewhere else making $1.5 million to $2 million, you don't have to take that challenge on. You can stay at your school."